Mrs. Karin Luomi-Messerer is and experienced project manager and team leader with more than 10 years of professional experience in the area of education (research and consulting). She is research coordinator at the 3s research laboratory, a non-profit research organisation in the field of lifelong learning on the interface between education and the labour market, one of the leading VET-research organisations in Austria. Her current research and consulting activities are focussing on the following topics: development of competences, practice-oriented education in higher education, and EU transparency tools in education policy (European Qualifications Framework/EQF, European Credit Transfer System in VET/ECVET) as well as related topics (learning outcomes, validation of non-formal and informal learning, quality assurance).

In her professional career she has been involved in research and consulting projects on national level (with public or private recipients) and on European level (Leonardo da Vinci, Socrates or Lifelong Learning Programme; European Commission). Presently, she is providing expertise on national and European level for the further development and implementation of the EQF/NQF and ECVET: Together with Jörg Markowitsch, she is supporting the Commission DG EAC in the development and implementation of the EQF, is coordinating the project EQF-Ref (www.EQF-Ref.eu) and is involved as expert in several EQF projects financed by the EC (for example, TransEQFrame – www.transeqframe.net). She is also involved in a project supporting ECVET testing projects commissioned by the EC (www.ecvet-projects.eu). On national level, she is providing scientific expertise to the ECVET Implementation Group as well as the NQF Project Group in the Austrian Federal Ministry for Education, the Arts and Culture and the Austrian Federal Ministry for Science and Research.